Modern Language Association
' Modern Language Association '(referred to as Modern Language Association or MLA) is an association of scholars, graduate students, and professors. There are 30,000 members in 100 countries. History Founded in 1883, the Modern Language Association of America offer opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and discuss academy trends. MLA Convention The Modern Language Association conventionhttp://www.mla.org/convention is in its 129th meeting as of January 2014 where the convention will take place in Chicago, Illinois. The conventions hosts an array of meetings, paper submissions, and job interviews for the literary individual. Membership Involvement in Association Activities Over 300 members are elected to govern the association with the Executive Council, Delegate Assembly, and other governance committees. Over 680 members serve on the executive committee of the 87 divisions in 50 discussion groups that represent the scholarly and teaching interest of various constituencies within the profession and help determine much of the program at the annual conventions. Well over 2,000 members give papers and readings each year at the convention. While hundreds of readers join the 52 members of the PMLA editorial board and advisory Committee in reviewing essays submitted for publication. More than 120 specialists index articles and journals for the MLA International bibliography. While over 70 members are involved in selecting the winners of the 23 prizes the MLA Award for outstanding scholarly books and articles on language and literaturehttp://www.mla.org/about. Modern Language Association Handbook The MLA handbook is the ultimate MLA guide. It is very useful for explaining guide styles of MLA and is used mainly for research papers. The authority on MLA documentation style. Widely adopted by universities, colleges, and secondary schools, the MLA Handbook gives step-by-step advice on every aspect of writing research papers, from selecting a topic to submitting the completed paper.http://www.mlahandbook.org/fragment/public_index;jsessionid=A5F598CFE29F275347161D1794578F4F MLA Document and Style Guide General Guidelineshttp://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ Type your paper on a computer and print it out on standard, white 8.5 x 11-inch paper. Double-space the text of your paper, and use a legible font (e.g. Times New Roman). Whatever font you choose, MLA recommends that the regular and italics type styles contrast enough that they are recognizable one from another. The font size should be 12 pt. Leave only one space after periods or other punctuation marks (unless otherwise instructed by your instructor). Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides. Indent the first line of paragraphs one half-inch from the left margin. MLA recommends that you use the Tab key as opposed to pushing the Space Bar five times. Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin. (Note: Your instructor may ask that you omit the number on your first page. Always follow your instructor's guidelines.) Use italics throughout your essay for the titles of longer works and, only when absolutely necessary, providing emphasis. If you have any endnotes, include them on a separate page before your Works Cited page. Entitle the section Notes (centered, unformatted). References